(5 of 9)
By all accounts the Thatcher family is a close-knit foursome, and Husband Denis is a cheery, supportive consort. Although the Thatchers last week began moving into the impersonal family quarters at No. 10 Downing Street, they will keep their Chelsea house. How much of their Chelsea routine can be kept is another matter. Normally, Thatcher is up at 6:30 a.m. to cook Denis' breakfast and do the shopping before heading off for Parliament. She likes sales and takes pride in being a bargain hunter. But time has become so precious that for the past few years she has bought her clothes—usually neatly tailored suits and blouses, often from Marks & Spencer—on twice-a-year bulk-buying sprees. Even the Queen sometimes appears slightly wind-blown in public, but Thatcher is invariably coifed and lacquered against the elements. She has already advised the staff at Downing Street that they "will have to understand that I must have an hour in my schedule once a week to have my hair done."
The family's life-style is comfortable, conventional, squarely middle class. Thatcher has few close friends and no real intellectual interests outside politics. She reads primarily "to keep up," as she puts it, much prefers Rudyard Kipling to T.S. Eliot, rarely dines out or sees a play. Her only hobby is collecting Royal Crown Derby china. At the end of a day, she and Denis like to relax over a drink: hers is Scotch, neat and usually just one.
When Thatcher first took her place on the back benches, there was no reason for anyone to mark her as a future Tory leader, much less Britain's first woman Prime Minister. She was not a member of any inner circle, not a protégée of any powerful party figure. Attractive in almost too meticulous a way, with a complexion as English as Devonshire cream and the instant smile of a doctor's receptionist, she looked rather like the chairman of a garden club in an affluent suburb. But in her first year as an M.P. she managed to get one of her own bills on the statute books—an early "sunshine law" that gave the press and the public the right to attend meetings of regional and urban councils.
After that, Thatcher's star began to rise rapidly. She became a junior minister for pensions in 1961, and three years later, when the Conservatives were in opposition, she was promoted to the front bench, which allowed her to shine in debate. In 1967 she joined the shadow cabinet and held a number of portfolios, including housing, transport and education. She also spoke up on treasury matters. Some Tory backbenchers remember vividly the verbal exchange that marked Thatcher as a fighting lady to be reckoned with. Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey, who is renowned for his brutal wit, had just dubbed her "La Pasionaria of Privilege." Thatcher ignored the pointed insult. "Some Chancellors are micro-economic," she answered coldly. "Some Chancellors are fiscal. This one is plain cheap." And she went on to document unerringly Healey's failure to deal with the facts.